Magic Closet

What is this????

 Ta-da! It is a MAGIC CLOSET. Everyone has one of those. Right?

Wow! These girls haven't had a magic closet before, they are excited!

I don't know what started it but one day a few weeks ago Matney became TERRIFIED of her closet and then of her room all together. It started just before Thanksgiving so I hadn't thought much about how to fix it, I was just worried about her being willing to go into her room and sleep at night. I mentioned it to my dad the night before Thanksgiving and when he got to town Thanksgiving afternoon he came inside and said "I need to go to Matney's room.". Less than an hour later we had a "magic closet" complete with shiny garland, twinkling lights and a Strawberry Shortcake house. It continued to produce a few other presents over the weekend and two days later we had two little girls in love with M's closet and no more fear. Shew! How smart was all that? Maybe after I've been a parent for 30+ years I'll be able to be so quickly creative. Thanks, Grandaddy!

Don't blink.

Look what happens when you blink live 365 days. Amazingly enough, their pumpkin shirts I made for last year still fit. M's is a 2T and HK's is a 3-6 months. I am not sure if these pictures make me smile because I am so in love with who these girls are becoming or if I want to just cry because time is moving so so quickly. Either way, they sure are cute. Take a good look these shirts now because I am pretty sure they won't fit in another 365 days!

Favorite time of the day

I should clarify, this is the favorite time of the day for the girls. Many days I would say my favorite time is nap time or bed time. Shew! I am just kidding...sort of. Really though, the girls do love the bath. They often play for so long that I have to add hot water more than once. Considering that HK hated the bath when she was young and most of the time just got cleaned with a wet wipe to avoid the tub it the time they spend in the water is impressive!
HK's face says it all in several of these pictures. She's so happy in the water and covered in food. Something in this house has to be a mess at all times. Often it is the girls. HK would prefer bubbles but Matney won't get in if even one bubble is floating in the water. Silly girls.

Build A Bear

Look who got to go to Build A Bear for the first time. Lucky HK, she gets to do everything at a much younger age than Matney. I guess some things are better when you're the younger sibling! After the train and carousel rides MoMo's been itching to get the girls to Build A Bear. When we were at the mall for Halloween she took the girls and they found out that Frosty the Snowman was coming in November. If you don't know it, HK is OBSESSED with Frosty. She loves him. So clearly we needed to go back before he sold out. Right? Especially since he lights up and has music when you take his hat on and off. If it has noise and light then MoMo and my girls think they need it!

Mom and the girls stuffed Frosty and found Karen and Hocus Pocus (the rabbit). Because we need two sets of Frosty guys...totally. We had to carry that box of critters around for days before the handle on M's finally broke and I snuck it to the trash one night. Thanks MoMo, they love them!

Twins

Thank goodness the only twins in this house are robots. I don't know how people survive having twin children. My two 14 months apart exhaust me!

Cheese Puffs!

I was desperate to occupy HK one morning while we were shopping during our few hours of M's preschool. In Target I decided to try cheese puffs. I think you can quickly see that they were a hit...and a huge mess!

Thanksgiving Feast

Matney's class had a Thanksgiving Feast and the parents were invited to attend. A friend (thanks, Amy!) kept HK so that I could go hang out with my big girl alone. Matney greeted me at the door and was very excited to show me her shirt, necklace, hat and placemat. All the parents brought food so we sat and ate with our little pilgrims. The feast was help in the gym at the church and after eating all the kids got up to play...except Matney. Literally every other child was playing (and there were two classes so 25+ kids) and Matney sat in my life, eventually crying that she just "wanted to go to my home". It was pitiful. I tried a few times to get her to play but she got more upset each time. Eventually we went and told her teacher we were leaving and came home. Matney was find when we got home so all I can think is that there was just too much going on that she wasn't used to. My poor girl.

Candles, music, caffeine and a mess

The girls ave been sick again for more than two weeks. We actually went back to Urgent Care Sunday and got antibiotics...finally. Since I like to keep it real around here I thought I'd post a picture of the house after several days of sick kiddos. There is stuff everywhere, including a tent in the living room as a desperate attempt to entertain them. It worked for a good three minutes!  

And this is what happens when Mama stays up late into the night (and early into the next morning) to clean. I can only take chaos for a little while before I snap!

A lit pumpkin candle, good music and some lots caffeine can help accomplish great things! And notice, now that all the pink plastic toys are in the playroom it looks much more like adults reside in this house too. Ahhh....if only it looked like the bottom picture all the time. Today, we are back to the top!

Growing up...in pictures

We recently moved Matney to a "big girl bed". Her crib converted to a toddler bed so it wasn't a total change, and we talked about it for over a week before Jared switched the front rail. Honestly, it was a hard change for me, my baby is growing up way too fast! Matney really initiated the change. She started asking for a "big girl bed like Kenzie's" (a friend of hers) and then she was walking in Target, saw Tinkerbell bedding and that was all she wrote! I fought it for a week and then, after she's told every stranger she met that she was "getting a Tinkerbell big girl bed" I headed back to Target to get what she wanted. Just know that her room is pink, PINK pink. Tinkerbell is purple. It doesn't match and it bothers me but she loves it so welcome to the family little Bell. Here are pictures of her room just before J took the rail off so that I can remember what it looked like to have my baby in a crib!

 Here's HK playing in M's bed while I was trying to get things accomplished. M was at preschool.

 M excited about her new bedding. We got it at Target, came home and it was washed and dried just in time for bed. Heaven help my sweet girl, she handles change about as well as her mama. The bedding switch was traumatizing and three times I made the Tinkerbell bed only to have to take it all back out and put it back to normal because M freaked out about new bedding. Eventually I learned to add the pillow, then the sheet, then the blanket one at a time over the course of a few days. Seriously, the screaming and drama was ridiculous...all for bedding that doesn't even match! AGH!

 The "new" bed. Dog tested it out and said it was ok!

 Matney came upstairs and LOVED it (HK is trying to climb as usual). I thought we'd have a really hard time with sleep for a few days but the rail change didn't phase her. She hasn't tried to climb out during naps/night once. What a great girl! The bedding change was horrible but the bed change was nothing. That was the opposite of what I expected. Now that this is out of the way we're about to buckle down and potty train. Fun times ahead!

Playroom

Ta da! After forgetting for months I finally snapped a few pictures of the playroom while it was fairly clean. During the hours the girls are awake the floor sometimes disappears! This was Jared's office and it is the first room you see when you walk into the house. Jared's office moved upstairs to the sitting room in our bedroom and we went to IKEA to get the couch and TV unit for this room. We also added french doors so that we could lock the girls in keep all the toys behind closed doors.

Originally I planned to keep it gender neutral but I really didn't like red/blue/yellow and the pink/blue/green is so cute. When if we have another child and it is a boy then I'll eventually have to redo the pink!

 View from the front door. We did most of this in September and found great deals because the back to school dorm stuff was all on sale. I got the rug at Target and then found material to match at Fabrics and Fringehttp://fabricsandfringe.com/. I love that place! I made the pillows and lampshade to match the window treatments.

I made magnetic boards for behind one door. I wanted to use the wall space but we couldn't do much of anything because the door opens against that wall. The theme for the room was "make it without costing a fortune". For these I got sheet metal at Lowe's ($10 each) and covered them in fabric ($3 each). Then Jared hung them on the wall. I made magnets with flat marbles and glued scrapbook paper on the back. The same paper is on the wall and on the boxes on the shelves so it all coordinates! Each girl has a board with her initial (Hobby Lobby letters covered with scrapbook paper and magnets hot glued to the back). They were about $17 each.

 Above the couch I did the usual scrapbook paper squares. This time I didn't just use paper, I made each square into scrapbook page. The girls LOVE to see pictures of themselves and you can often catch them pointing at their picture just like HK above. The boards were 12x12 cut down from a large sheet of wood. I made the scrapbook page then glued it to the board and hung picture hangers on the back. I already had the wood left from other projects so the only thing we paid for was the scrapbook paper and stickers. Here are some of them close up.

 One side of the room - their doll house, table and the bug bean bags (holding the door open so that the girls don't try to slam it and pinch fingers).

 Behind the other door. I put up hooks and a mirror at their height. The hooks hold lots of their dress up clothes and, of course, HK's wings.

 I made this canvas and hung it above the mirror. I just painted the canvas and cut the letters out on my Cricut. The castle/carraige were scrapbook chipboard that I hot glued on. This is one of my favorite parts of the room. Have I ever mentioned how much I love having girls?!?!?

This is the TV unit we got at IKEA. We're watching the TV deals since Black Friday is coming up so eventually we'll get that added. The boxes were from Target and I made tags (out of the same scrapbook paper) and then took them to an office supply place to be laminated. This way the boxes are labeled and I can change it when the contents change. Easy and cheap!

So, there it is! The girls LOVE playing in there and I love having a clean living room for the first time in 2.5 years. As they get older and can really be trusted in the room alone (right now not jumping on the couch is too much temptation!) then I know we'll use it more and more. I'd been very hesitant to have this as the first thing you see when coming in the front door but I really like it now that it is finished. We spend more time in here during the day than anywhere else.